The Business Advantage

Yesterday saw the last thematic event in the IFAD and CCAFS
organised series “the Agriculture Advantage”. This session, the Business
Advantage, focused on private sector climate actions.

Private sector-led climate actions are key to helping
countries achieve goals set out in their Nationally Determined Contributions
(NDCs). But of all publicly available
climate finance, only 2.5 per cent goes to agriculture.

“Populations are
increasing. Food insecurity is increasing,” said IFAD's Margarita Astralaga. "If
we have a chance of achieving developing country NDCs, most of which mention
agriculture, we need to mobilise more financing and this can only come from the
private sector.”

H.E. Luis Felipe Arauz Cavallini, Costa Rica's Minister of
Agriculture and Livestock said that in order to engage the private sector they
need to see a tangible benefit.

"These benefits exist, we just need to get better at
communicating them to potential partners," said Cavallini.

He then gave examples of successful engagement with the
private sector in Costa Rica particularly focussing on coffee and livestock.

Then followed an interactive panel moderated by Tony Simons,
Director General of the World Agroforestry Center (ICRAF).

“There is a common misconception that public good equals
private bad, and vice versa. We need to undo and reframe this thinking,” said Simons.

Whilst acknowledging that there are serious risks within the
agriculture sector and also when it comes to engaging with them, Simons said
that the benefits were still greater, and a priority moving forward needs to be
in de-risking agriculture, possibly through insurance schemes.

Margarita Astralaga then gave an in-depth review of IFAD’s
flagship Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme (ASAP). In it she
detailed how ASAP engages with private sector entities throughout its
portfolio.

“At IFAD we don’t just work on Public-Private-Partnerships (PPP),
we work on PPPP. For us the Producers are an integral part. We consider the
smallholders we work with, and the cooperatives we empower them to join as
private sector entities,” said Astralaga.

Fhumulani Mashau, Projects Officer, Southern African
Confederation of Agricultural Unions (SACAU) gave an insight into her
experience in Southern Africa. She talked of the important role Information and
Communications Technology (ICT)will play going forward and how climate-proof infrastructure
was a huge priority.

“The main role of the private sector is scale,” said Matthew
Reddy, Director for CSA, World Business Council for Sustainable Development
(WBCSD). “There is an opportunity to link agriculture to large companies. We
can bring the whole value chain together. We can increase productivity and
simultaneously decrease greenhouse gas emissions – which is important for
everyone.”

Diane Holdorf, Chief Sustainability Officer, Kellogg Company talked
of all the work Kellogg’s has been doing to improve its sustainability record,
and how by 2050 the company wanted to be using 100 per cent renewable
technology, a huge feat.

“We knew that we needed transformation. We needed the
enabling policy and technology to allow us to do it,” said Holdorf. “Food waste
and loss are huge risks. They are specifically mentioned in SDG 12. For our
part, we noticed an area we could improve, and that is in food labelling. There
is confusion around 'best before’ and 'use by' labelling. We are driving
consistency in labelling to reduce confusion and eventually reduce food waste
and loss. Another important area we are working on is packaging sizes.”

After a long Q&A session, Astralaga wrapped up by stating,
“It is all about trust. Trust is key to engage agricultural value chains from
farm to plate. We need to foster a trusting environment because private sector investment is essential!”